But I’d been around Marlon for long enough now that I was betting it was a whole lot more than that. That man had a mind like a steel trap and seemed to be able to see every possible eventuality in a situation within moments of looking at it. He might have known that being close to the shore made for safer ice, but I was willing to bet that “quicker escape route” had also been high up on the list of things that helped him make the decision.
The man must have been an absolute marvel in the field, whether he was with the military or the intelligence community. Working with someone that capable and even-tempered would have been a dream come true. A lot of people in Afghanistan had liked working with me, for those very reasons, but Marlon’s capabilities put my own to shame.
We were lucky to have found him. To have been found by him. We were lucky to have him on our side.
When we hit the start of the curve in the river, Marlon held up his hand and I slowed.
“We need to go slower around the curve, or we’ll end up sending Angie and the sled further out toward the center of the river, just with her momentum,” he said quietly.
I nodded and matched my pacing to his. We were barely creeping now, and the skin on the back of my neck was absolutely crawling with the feeling that someone was behind us, watching. Normally I would have paid attention to that instinct and whirled around, my handgun up and at the ready. But that wasn’t my job right now.
“Angie, you got eyes on everything behind us?” I called over my shoulder.
She was our eyes and ears right now. It was our job to provide the manpower. Hers to provide the lookout.
I heard her shifting in the sled, and then heard a grunt of pain that must have meant she’d pushed her leg too far. Then: “Nothing, there’s no one back there—and if there is, they’re hiding so well that even I can’t see them.”
Another pause, and I assumed she was narrowing her eyes the way she did when she really wanted to focus on something, and checking both sides of the river for signs of inadvertent movement or brightly colored clothing. The sort of clothing people normally wore when they were hunting, to alert other hunters to their presence.
Yes, it would have been stupid and pointless for Randall or anyone else to wear that sort of clothing out here, where there were so few other hunters. And it would have been absolute lunacy for him to wear it when he was hunting us and needed to be as subtle as humanly possible. But the man was also certifiably insane.
I didn’t think it was a big jump to think that he was in fact wearing reflective, bright orange hunting gear. And if he was, it was going to make him a whole lot easier to spot.
“Nothing,” she finally said, her voice registering both surprise and relief. “If they’re out there, they haven’t made it to the river yet.”
“Hopefully they don’t,” I replied. “Hopefully they think we’ve gone an entirely different way. Maybe they’ll find our camping spot in the cave, and it’ll set them on the wrong path.”
“One can only hope,” Marlon answered, and something in his voice made me turn toward him, my own eyes narrowed.
“You’re expecting it to,” I guessed.
I saw the corner of his mouth jerk up in what would have become a smile under less intense circumstances.
“‘Expecting’ is a rather strong term,” he said. “But I have to admit that the idea had occurred to me. That cave was in the exactly wrong direction if we were planning on coming to the river. And there are towns in that direction as well. Maybe he’ll think we’re trying to put him off our track by heading for a town other than the one where he knows you live. With luck, that little field trip will send them on a wild goose chase. With even more luck, they won’t realize it was a wild goose chase until we’re well within the town limits of Ellis Woods.”
I snorted in appreciation. Like I’d said, the man was a master planner. Always at least three steps ahead.
We were moving too slowly for my liking, but our progress was still a lot faster than it would have been up on the snow, and within five minutes, we were around the sharp bend in the river, and we gave ourselves a moment to stop and rest. Marlon and I bent over, huffing, and Angie looked backward and to the sides of us, using the binoculars I’d packed in her backpack on that morning that seemed like it had been a different lifetime, when we first left our home to go hunting.
“Nothing,” she finally said, dropping the binoculars against her chest. “I don’t see anything that looks like it might be humans. No movement, no flash of clothing. The complete lack of movement in a forest this populated with animals would normally make me suspicious. It’s not like animals to just up and disappear unless there’s something dangerous in the area. But then I remembered that we’re out here, doing what has to look like something entirely crazy to the animal population. I guess that’s a good enough reason for them to have skedaddled from the area.”
“Not to mention the fact that there’s no running water here,” Marlon added. “They’re not here for water, and there’s plenty of grass under snow in less-crowded parts of the forest. I don’t expect we’d see much wildlife in this area, regardless.”
“Good point,” she muttered.
“How much further do you suppose it is?” I asked Marlon, bringing the meeting back to order. Randall and his men might not be after us yet—and if Marlon was right, they might be headed in the opposite direction—but I still wasn’t going to feel relaxed until we had Ellis Woods firmly in our sights.
And I wasn’t going to be completely happy until I had four walls around me again. Walls that would slow down bullets. And a door that would keep people like Randall out.
“About five miles or so, I’d say,” he guessed. “Far enough that it’s going to take us awhile to get there, and it’s not going to be an easy trip. Close enough that it’s doable. Might even be doable today, if we can stay on the river for long enough. And if we don’t bother stopping for too long come lunch.”
“Damn lunch,” I ground out. “I say we work right through lunchtime. I want to get my wife home, to her daughter, and to medical help. I can eat tomorrow.”
Marlon let out a bark of laughter at that, and I could see him nodding from my peripheral vision. “On that, my friend, we’re agreed. If we get too hungry and feel like we can’t keep going, we’ll stop. Until then, we will be the work horses your wife needs.”
He reached into his pack, shuffled around, and then pulled several packages from one of the pockets. He tossed one to me and one over his shoulder to Angie, keeping the third for himself. When I looked down, I saw that they were granola bars. The kind my mom had given me when I was a kid.
The corners of my mouth ticked up slightly at the thought, then I began tearing into the wrapper, already able to taste the combination of peanut butter and chocolate with oats.
“I’ve never found anything to be quite so satisfying as a granola bar when you’re out in the wild,” Marlon said, his voice holding something that sounded like slight embarrassment. “I’ve loved them since I was a kid.”
“Me, too,” I answered.
I was just biting into my granola bar when the ice under my feet let out a terrifically loud breaking sound and started to crack.
21
“John!” Angie shouted, her voice filled with the same terror that was flowing quickly through my veins.
But it was already too late. By the time I’d sent the necessary commands to my limbs and whirled toward her, the cracks under our feet were already snaking along the ice, growing larger and larger as they went. And they were heading right for the sled.